Seated by the Ear
by Vialana
Summary: Slash :: Two years past the fall of Sunnydale things should have been better. They were different. But some things would never change. HIATUS
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ depicted within this fan fiction.**

_I've wanted to write a piece about Andrew for so long. This idea has been floating around in my mind for a few weeks. I thought it interesting, let's hope I can get that across on page._

_Warnings: slash, language, darker themes. The rating is there for a reason._

_Enjoy._

**Seated by the Ear**

It's been almost two years since the fall of Sunnydale and the world is finally starting to return to normal. As normal as the world could ever be that is. Well, actually, it's more that _our_ world was finally returning to some semblance of order.

Walking into my office the first time you wouldn't think there was a window. There was, but it only looked out upon a shaded section of the south grounds, half the view cut off by the west wing of the main compound. The window is often covered with heavy drapes and overhung with book cases lining the wall. The furniture is all dark woods. Even the computer casing is black. My desk lamps have shades and the overhead light has a dimmer switch.

Not many people want to see me. They want to see me in my office even less after the first visit there. To quote the only person who has ever made a willing second visit to my neck of the woods: "You're weird, your office is creepier. You're lucky you make ambrosia disguised as coffee or you wouldn't even have this little of a social life." Honestly, I never had much of one before, and I really don't crave one now. I like my dark creepy office and my lack of visitors, so what if it gives people the impression I'm defecting back to the dark side?

At ten every morning she comes in to give me an update on everybody else. Personally, I find it more entertaining to live vicariously through what may be my only friend than to interact with these people myself. They've made it very clear I'm not to their liking and I've grown up enough to realise, they're not to mine.

Still, she tries continuously to get me more involved again. It works a couple of times, but never as often as she'd like. She's a sweetheart. She's sincere and not afraid to be honest when it counts. She's grown up a lot too and she sees how things really are. Maybe not like I do, but I'd be afraid if she did. And the best part is, she's not dead or evil or a figment of my imagination.

Unlike someone I could name.

"You know that whole debate about who was really cooler: Vader or Sidious? I'm completely siding with Vader right now, because the Sidious vibe I'm getting from you is way too frightening to be cool."

I stare down at the tiny south-west garden tucked away between the two wings three stories below and try not to wish how much I'd rather be there, frolicking in the moonlight – or non-moonlight as the new moon would have things – than here, in my stuffy black hole of an office.

I don't dare turn to the corner where I keep my research desk. I know what I'll see. He'll be bending over peering at the latest work I've been doing and soon enough he'll make a comment and look up. He'll be smiling with sad eyes, far too pale – even for him – and my gaze would be drawn down and I'll have to see again the vision of my ultimate sin.

Of course things never go as planned and I keep forgetting that he always knows what I'm thinking.

"They reserve the lowest level of hell for traitors, you know."

I can feel his breath on my neck. Feel him, his hand on my shoulder. Only I can't, because it's not real and he's not really there and if I don't look, I won't see him and his voice will go away and I'll stop shivering and I won't feel his fingers tracing my neck like he wants to snap it.

I wouldn't begrudge him the right. Everyone says they want to strangle me, even just to shut me up, but I'd never let it happen. My death's reserved for those already rotting.

His breath is so cold on my lips and even as it repulses me, I long for it. I long for part of this to be true even as I blubber in my mind to make it stop. My fingers itch to touch him, but I don't. I just let him caress feeling so much from nothing. I'm cold and hot and I can't take the torture much longer. I wish he'd just do something. I wish I'd let myself do something. I want to cry. I want to rip my skin off. I want to turn on every light and I want to break the sun for daring to shine.

He knows what this does to me. It's worse every time. I try to hold out longer and longer, but this time, like every other time, I break with a strangled sob and open my eyes.

Guileless eyes meet mine. Blue irises that hold only pain and darkness. His red lips are so close to mine, barely open, breath misting between us. I'm caught in the trap again and I try not to look, I scramble back, but my legs are locked and I fall to my knees and then it's right there in front of me.

My sin. My betrayal. Blood still pulsing from a never-closing wound. Droplets paint my lips the same dark shade as his before falling to the floor and staining the wood.

He bends down to lap the blood from my aching lips.

"You were never an angel – not even a tainted one."

He smirks and leans in close and I close my eyes again, fear and anticipation writhing through me. A gentle touch smothered by pain. It's always the same. And I wonder if I ever want it to change.

"Andrew?"

I open my eyes to the sun on my face. I'm in my overly large leather chair. Again. The weather outside is nice, but not fantastic. I sit up properly and stretch out the crick in my neck before swivelling around to face my visitor.

"Hey Dawn."

She's holding a plate of pastries in the doorway. She rolls her eyes at my dishevelled state and enters my sanctum. "Honestly, did you sleep in here again? There's nothing that important going on. You should save the sleepless nights for apocalypse time."

I smile at her concern, like I always do. "This way I'll be prepared."

She huffs, crossing her arms adorably. She looks her age again when she acts on her emotions. Dressed in a suit with her hair pulled back, her face is marred by a serious frown too often. At least when she gets angry, she acts nineteen, not thirty.

We distract each other and laugh and she tells me all the new gossip while I make us coffee to go with our brunch and I don't let her behind my desk.

Because I still don't know if the bloodstains are real or imaginary.


	2. Chapter 2

"… And so she's all like, 'Well fuck you too Johnny — or whatever his name is — not like you were any good either.' I mean, come on, I'm standing right there, do I really want to know that sort of thing? Anyway, he buggered off and she's in a bad mood and they try and leave it all to me to deal with her. I'm all, 'Nuh uh! She's your best friend, you go do damage control.' Not like she's talked to me for a month. Too wrapped up in Toddy, or whoever. You know I think she's got a real problem with commitment."

"Who would have thought?" She grins at that, reassuring me that she isn't just using me as a dumping ground. She looked at me strangely the first time I said it was all right to let everything out, that I actually enjoyed listening to her problems. Who doesn't like a good bitch session?

We're sitting at a small corner shop café eating sandwiches that are far too overpriced in suits that cost more than three months rent in my first house. She's got some health mix tea drink and I'm with my trusted hot chocolate. We don't often get enough time for a lunch like this, but the day was beautiful and our workload was thin. She didn't need to twist my arm too much to get me out of the office.

I don't think I've seen the sky without a pane of glass separating me from it for five months.

"Anyway, she needs to realise that sort of mentality doesn't breed happiness." She takes a sip of her drink.

"Maybe she knows," I suggest, the thought having occurred to me before.

"What do you mean?"

"Honestly, it's not like she really hid those masochistic tendencies of hers, no matter how slight others think them. Seriously, look at her 'long-term' relationships."

She thinks it over and rolls her eyes, nodding. "You're right. Angel: Demon, cursed, immortal, the dark and brooding type to self-absorbed to ever settle down. Riley: the guy you'd love to take home to your parents, smart, funny, loyal, chivalrous — too chivalrous — doesn't open up and apparently not special enough for her. Spike: demon, evil, immortal, neutered — at the time — devotes himself completely to his relationships, admittedly a little too sensitive and easily dominated. He loved her too much; she used that and walked all over him. Hell, they all did that, to some degree."

"Doomed from the start," I confirm.

"Hey, there were circumstances," she protests.

"I'm sure there were, but still. Vampire, Rebound-guy, Sex-Toy. And they haven't gotten any better have they?"

"Definitely not."

"I rest my case." I finish off my sandwich, glancing at the clock on the wall inside behind the counter as I do so. We have twenty minutes before lunch is officially over.

"It's not as though we're any better," she muses over her tea. "Any of us."

I really try not to think too much on that, but I groan anyway. "Please stop reminding me. The last time I got laid was in a seedy back room with an orgy going on at my feet and I couldn't see straight. He wasn't any better; could barely find where to put it."

She scrunches up her nose. "Ew." I grin. I only say these things to see that expression. It's quite cute.

"How are the test results from that incident anyway? You had to go this weekend, right?" She is actually concerned, so I drop what I was going to say and don't make her squirm any more.

"Yeah, still clean. There's the six month one as well, but there's little chance of that being positive."

"That's great. I can't believe I forgot to ask."

"Well, with everyone coming home this weekend you've probably had a lot of running around to do."

"That's definitely true." She has that glint in her eyes again, the annoyed one that says she's about to go on another rant. I sit back in my seat and get ready to enjoy it.

Before she even begins I cut her off with a gasp.

"What?" She spins around in her seat to follow gaze. "What is it?"

Shit, there's no way …

"Andrew?"

I jerk myself back from thought.

"… Sorry … I just … sorry." I rub at my temple and pinch the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes shut until the pressure starts to hurt. "I thought I saw someone I knew."

"Oh." She sits back down in her seat, having risen in panic at my reaction. And why did I react so violently, it's not as though …

Well, I guess the situation might have called for a reaction like that actually.

"Maybe we should go back," she suggests.

"No, I'm fine, continue, I wanna hear all the gossip about this weekend."

"Andrew——"

"Dawn." I frown at her. "I'm fine. I don't want to go back yet; I spend too much time in the office as it is."

"Well that's definitely true," she admits, slumping down in defeat. Just as suddenly, she perks back up with wide eyes. "We should at least go for a walk then, get more fresh air?" She pouts: the deadly Summers pout that has swayed many men into agreeing to all sort of devious antics. "I don't feel like working for the rest of the afternoon either, and you're looking a little peaky."

I sigh. I know I look like hell, fancy suit and tamed hair or not. I haven't been sleeping well — and my mind shies away from trying to explain why — and I've been working myself too hard. I don't go out, don't have real friends — besides the girl across from me — and I don't even spend time indoors on recreation that much any more. I have a brand new special edition _Back to the Future_ box set with special features that hasn't been torn excitedly from its plastic yet. That really should say it all about my life.

She's looking at me so desperately, that I wonder whether I've downplayed my own unhealthy state. Maybe I should talk to someone about …

No, a walk sounds just right actually. Fresh, healthy, distracting.

I get up and walk to her side of the table, taking a small mocking bow and extending my arm. "Milady?" I inquire with a smile.

That grin, the one that tells me she's genuinely delighted, is all I can see and already I can feel a little colour returning to my cheeks.

If only I could fall in love with her, it would be so much easier.

"Thank you, good sir."

As she takes my arm, I tell myself that love isn't meant to be easy. If love were easy, I'd be on some tiny island in the Pacific getting sand in my hair as Warren Mears kisses my suntanned chest.

But Warren is dead — deservedly so. And no matter how much I wish it, even when I know I shouldn't love him, he's not coming back. And he definitely wasn't standing on a street corner for a split second only a few minutes ago.


End file.
